To quote President Gerald R. Ford out of context 38 years later: “My fellow Americans, our long
national nightmare is over.”

Well, almost over. Two more days and the interminable campaign of 2012 will be behind us.
Unless, of course, it drags on for another month while haggling partisans adjudicate the results in
the courts and on Fox and MSNBC.

In any event, here are some 9th inning thoughts:

If Mitt Romney loses the presidency because he lost Ohio by 2 percentage points or less, he will
wake up every morning for the rest of his life asking the same question: “Why didn’t I pick Sen.
Rob Portman of Ohio as my running mate?”

U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the GOP veep nominee, has been a surprisingly good campaigner,
but he can’t pull along Ohio in a close race. Portman, a Cincinnatian, could have, particularly by
maximizing the vote in Republican-rich southwestern Ohio.

Consider this: Since 1900, there have been only four presidential elections in Ohio decided by 2
percentage points or less, and three of them were won by Democrats. In 1944, however, Republican
Thomas Dewey defeated Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt by 0.37 of a percentage point. The reason:
Ohio Gov. John Bricker was Dewey’s running mate. Portman could have been to Romney what Bricker was
to Dewey.

Stephen Brooks, a University of Akron political scientist, suggested Romney might be nursing
another morning-after regret if he loses Ohio: “I wish I hadn’t written that
New York Times op-ed.” The piece, entitled “Let Detroit go bankrupt,” has been a millstone
for Romney across northern Ohio, where the $82 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler is
widely heralded as a job-saver.

If Obama loses the presidency in Ohio, it will be for one reason: The magic is gone. The
four-year drudgery of governing and of failing to unite a polarized nation has rendered hollow the
promise of hope and change. Instead of welcoming the hordes of college kids, independents and even
Republicans who willingly ran into Obama’s arms in 2008, his campaign now must bombard them with
pleas to remain in the fold and go vote. The enthusiasm gap is real.

Ohio’s 10 largest newspapers, including two with staunchly Republican editorial viewpoints, have
endorsed the re-election of Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Many of the endorsement editorials have
criticized Josh Mandel, the Republican nominee and state treasurer for 21 months, for running a
dishonest and negative campaign and for demonstrating that he is not ready to represent Ohio in the
Senate.

Even so, Mandel very well could beat Brown. The reason: Roughly $30 million worth of attack ads
from outside groups such as Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been
aired in Ohio to pulverize Brown.

In all, there have been 64,000 TV ads run in the Senate campaign by “super-PACs” and other
outside groups, almost all of them negative, and four times more favoring Mandel than Brown.
According to a
Dispatch analysis, more than 90 percent of those ads were financed by so-called “social
welfare” organizations, including Rove’s and the Chamber, that legally don’t have to disclose their
donors.

Ohio has never witnessed an election pounding by outside influences like the one being inflicted
upon Brown. Remember when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was a respected and honorable business
organization? Not anymore. Now it is the caricature of a snarling pit bull.

The story of the 2012 presidential election will be about more than who won — Obama or Romney.
Equally, it will be about the torrents of money, much of it from secret sources that threaten to
subjugate the good of the people to deep-pocketed special interests — all thanks to the U.S.
Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizens United case.

Can our democracy stand another election like this one if Citizens United effectively reigns as
the law of the land four years hence?